Research firm Strategy Analytics has stated that it expects Samsung to widen the lead in the smartphone market over Apple during 2013. The research firm predicts Samsung will see 35% growth this year helped in part by a wider product line. The research firm also believes that to help counter the increased competition by Samsung that Apple might launch a smaller and cheaper “iPhone mini” next year.

A smaller-screened iPhone has been rumored for a number of years, but has never come to fruition. Apple addresses the “cheaper” bullet point by discounting previous generation iPhone models to selling alongside the current generation model. For example, the previous generation iPhone 4S is priced at $99 with a two-year contract, while the iPhone 4 is available for free with a two-year contract. The current generation iPhone 5 starts at $199.

However, with Apple finally rolling out a smaller iPad mini that has seen significant sales success, the market may be right for Apple to bring a pint-sized iPhone to the market.

The analytics firm believes that globally smartphone shipments will increase 27% during 2013 to 875,000,000 units. While 27% growth is a brisk pace, it is a significant decline from the 41% growth the smartphone market saw in 2012. Strategy Analytics blames slowing growth in North America, China, Asia, and Western Europe.

The research firm predicts that Samsung will sell 290 million smartphones in 2013, which is a significant increase from the estimated 215 million smartphones Samsung sold in 2012. It should be noted, however, that Samsung’s own internal numbers suggest that it will sell a more substantial 390 million smartphones for the year.

Apple is predicted to sell 180 million smartphones in 2013 for 33% increase from its 2012 sales numbers. If the research firm's predictions come true Samsung will hold 33% of the smartphone market with Apple a bit behind at 21%.

Removable battery and hdmi connector will never happen, even phones from other companies are dropping the removable battery to slim down their devices. A lightning to hdmi adapter is currently available; I leave the adapter on my hdmi cable so it isn't much of an issue... but I use airplay more often. SD card we see in the 13" mac air but in keeping with historical evidence, this is a highly unlikely addition. The iPhone 5 PPI is the highest of any phone and they cant simply make the screen bigger without upping the resolution. I haven't heard anyone calling for a huge screen, the note 2 gets laughed at for not being able to fit in ones pocket. 4 inches to 5.5 inches, we're talking a 1.5 inch increase to increase sales? I think not.

Why not look forward to the iPad mini LTE with retina screen coming out this year? Covers most of your requirements too.

Seriously, where do you get your info? The iPhone has 326PPI ... Todays Android 5 inch 1080p screens have 441PPI.

" the note 2 gets laughed at for not being able to fit in ones pocket."

Really? All 10 million of them? Must not be on the same planet as me, because my co-workers Note2 fits in my pocket and when he pulls it out, he gets nothing but envy, not laughter. Especially from iPhone users.

Replaceable batteries are better than integrated batteries and that's just the simple truth. I have two spares for a total of three batteries on my GS3. There cheap enough to buy so why not! Before the Jelly Bean update, I was usually able to go 4 and sometimes into the 5th day with moderate use and never touched a power outlet. Since the Jelly Bean update, it's usually 4 days maximum.

For me, this is especially important during business travel, using the phone for gps while hiking/backpacking and those random busy weekends when you might not ever get near a wall socket. I pray Samsung keeps the replaceable batteries for the GS4 - I will probably buy one for that reason alone.

That's cool and everything, but for some people that's a lot of extra junk to be spending money on when the device could just be better in the first place. Why have three batteries when you can have one integrated battery with double the battery life (4 hours LTE browse time on a GS3 vs 8+ hours on an iPhone 5).

If buying a bunch of batteries makes sense for you then cool, but I never bought extra batteries even for my laptops. Why spend money and take extra space with more stuff? I expect better battery life in the first place.

You know who you sound like? You sound like someone who has never bought a spare battery or tried using one -- as such, you have have no idea what you are talking about. You speak from inexperience.

Verizon has 50% off accessories sales about twice a year and a charging station with spare can be had for $25. In relation to the cost of your monthly bill and the price of the phone, a one time expense of $25 is practically nothing! And honestly, define "extra junk". Are your car/house keys extra junk too because they go in your pocket? Are you really comparing carrying around a spare phone battery to a laptop battery. One of them can be carried without notice and the other cannot. You're argument is completely inane.

Seriously, stop saying double the battery life. That is a flat out lie... As I have posted elsewhere the ip5 has even lower talk time than the gs3 you keep bringing up... and no 1 carries a removable battery around ,the point is when you go on a trip or to an event and need extra battery power you have it if you need it.

It is over double the battery life with both LTE and Wifi, how is that a lie?

As for talk time, cool, great for people who talk on their phones.

On a trip I just pack a power cord, no big deal.

Like I've said before, I think its fine that there are phones with a replaceable battery. The tradeoff for faster hardware with better apps and more battery life works out for me. If there was a phone with all of the above, and a replaceable battery life without compromising size, THEN it'd be worth talking about for me.

"It is over double the battery life with both LTE and Wifi, how is that a lie?"

How? Right here. "If having double the battery life "

It does not have double the battery life. It has even less talk time than the ONE phone you compare it against and double the LTE browsing time. You are cherry picking and you know it. Why you are deliberately trying to falsify things while calling yourself unbiased is beyond me, but I will call you on it every time I see it.

Dude, you can't quote out of context to try and win an argument, it doesn't work that way!

quote: "It is over double the battery life with both LTE and Wifi "

You omitted the bold part to try and make a point, a point that I wasn't even trying to make. Come on dude!

If you want to bring up talk time then that's fine, but don't try and twist what I said specifically about LTE and wifi browsing time into something else. Even then there is only about a 20% difference in talk time versus about a 2x difference in browse time.

I'm not even bringing up CPU and GPU performance to be nice. I don't know why you're getting so bent out of shape over all this anyway, other phones will eventually catch up in most specs. HTC is already doing much better with LTE (7 hours or so) now that they have the newer LTE chips that the iPhone 5 also uses.

GPU performance, app quality, resistance to malware, and timely OS updates are things that won't happen on Android hardware anytime soon, but you can be sure that CPU performance and battery life will catch up shortly. Plus you have bigger screens and the other things that come with larger chassis (replaceable batteries and SD card slots). Other Android handsets like the Nexus 4 are dropping those things that fans like to brag about (Flash support, replaceable batteries, SD cards, etc) as they get smaller and more integrated, but again those choices that bigger phones give will still be there.

Yes, I don't like carrying around extra things like batteries. If you do then that's totally cool!

Choices, decisions, these are things that actually exist and people are free to make them. I gladly trade more battery life for not needing to carry more batteries, but obviously there are people who prefer the opposite in real life, and that's totally cool.

oh here you go with this again. You never answered this the last time so let's re post it to expose your skewing of facts and bias and to shut you up.

1. You keep comparing browsing time, which is one area Apple excels. Look at ALL of the charts. The iPhone 5 has even LESS talk time than the GS3, but you "cherry picked" that right out didnt you? Here is the full picture on this. The iPhone5 has LOWER battery life for talk time, better battery life for web browsing and comparable on other measures.

2. Even with the web browsing, you keep picking the GS3 as if its the only phone out there. For whatever reason, it has poor performance even against other Android phones on web browing. The HTX One X has almost double whathte GS3 has too. So you are cherry picking the best of the iPhone data and the worst of Android and calling it fact. Its not a fact. Here is the facts on web browsing. The iPhone 4 has the best web browsing of the few phones tested, but only by a couple percent compared to the HTC OneX... NOT DOUBLE

Yeah, and I've brought up the HTC in other threads, several times in fact. The reason the HTC does almost as well as the iPhone (6 hours vs 8) is that it also uses newer Qualcomm parts.

This thread is about Samsung, and I'll talk about the GS3 and Note 2 here. I'm sorry if you can't distinguish between me talking specifically about Samsung devices and blanket statements about the Android platform (poorer dev support, SDK, general performance, lack of vendor support, malware, etc). Those are two different things.

It is a fact that Samsung hardware like the GS3 has half the browse time and only about 20% more talk time (since you want to bring that in) than the iPhone. The Note 2 doesn't do much better, thanks to its larger battery. Both also have a slower GPU/CPU, again, fact.

Are numbers and hard metrics debatable now? This is like arguing with a creationist.

Even at that, the GS3, for whatever reason really sucks the battery low when web browsing. It has some battery hog issue browsing and scores really low compared to any phone, even other Androids.

This guy takes that one spec, one test from one phone and spouts off "iPhone has double the battery life" for months now. AS if everyone cant see he is sherry picking. It slike, my '12 Civic gets better mileage than a BMW M3, therefore my Civic is a better car LOL.

I don't just bring up battery life, I also bring up CPU and GPU performance. If we're talking about the OS then there is generalized performance, fragmentation, lack of vendor support, and app quality as well.

quote: It has some battery hog issue browsing and scores really low compared to any phone, even other Androids.

The GS3 battery performance is actually pretty close to other Android handsets of similar size and internal hardware out there. I wondered if it was something to do with custom software but it is actually very common.

The GS3 is actually better than 2011 LTE handsets, almost all of which have even worse battery life for browsing.

The S3 rates about as well as or even better than most other Android handsets out there. It is about average with wifi and LTE, and near the top of the pack with 3G browsing. Now I know you're going to complain about the GS3 being "old" and this comparison being unfair, but it came out only about 4 months before the iPhone 5. Hardly ancient technology.

More relevant, it doesn't underperform other Android hardware as you claim.

Again, don't you worry, the next Galaxy phones will do much better with battery life once they use the newer more efficient parts that the iPhone 5 and new HTC handsets use.

The much lauded Nexus 4 dropped the SD card slot and pretty much did away with a removable battery door. You can still access it by unscrewing the back with a Torx screwdriver, but you can do that with an iPhone as well. You aren't replacing the door of the Nexus 4 either since that's where the antennas are integrated.

This trend will continue as other devices catch up and get smaller in volume. There's only so much room you can have for physical features like that unless you go the giant smartphone or Phablet route like the Note 2.

"This is about the Internet. Everything on the Internet is encrypted. This is not a BlackBerry-only issue. If they can't deal with the Internet, they should shut it off." -- RIM co-CEO Michael Lazaridis